Growth Project IVAlexandra Colven

Assignment

Paramenters

Must save and use resource photos. Must choose an animal, insect or plant on the endangered species list. Lines/shapes must extend off the page on 3-4 sides. Must have overlapping shapes. Must have a variety of line work.

Brainstorming

I tried many different compositions of my flower. I sketched a close up, a medium range sketch of two flowers, and a far away sketch of four flowers. In an additional sketch I tested how my flower would look against a wooden background.

Feedback

My feedback was positive and encouraged me to use the far away composition consisting of four flowers. One recommendation was to not have such a detailed background, which I completely agreed with.

Piliminary

I decided to do the far away composition with no background. In my practice print, I carved out the stems and the petals. The composition consisted of the bottom right corner of my print. Carving out the positive space left too much blank ink, making my project look not only heavy, but very simplistic. When I moved on to the final plate, I adjusted what I carved to fix this problem.

Difficulties

A major difficulty I had when carving is the small spaces. Since I was carving the background and the inside of the petals, I had to carefully carve around each small line. I ended up creating fewer blades of grass than in my sketch to keep me from falling behind.

Another struggle was trying to make the spots I carved out completely smooth. When I starting printing, small ink dots came up where it was supposed to be completely white. I consistently had to go back and re-carve areas of linoleum that were raised.

Critique

Overall, I am really happy with my finished prints. I have done 2 other prints in the past and had a really hard time with them. I challenged myself by carving out the negative space and I'm really pleased with how it looks.